RQG 58 - Tanks But No Tanks
Summary The party jumps from the frying pan and into the fire. Hamid gets trigger happy, Sasha carries a spare, Zolf stands in line, and Bertie meets his mummy. Synopsis The party's two gnome hostages are dead (thanks to Zolf) and Hamid has prestidigitated himself clean of any blood. They’re still looking for a way to get out of the locksmiths’ and get Wilde away safely. Zolf suggests that they put Wilde in the saferoom/bolt hole and lock him in there to protect him, pretend as though they don’t know anything about him. They clean up the blood trails as well. They get their stories straight – they killed the gnomes because they thought they had telepathy, and don’t know who Wilde is, and if they say they’re looking for someone annoying they’ll pretend it’s Bertie. Hamid opens the door and pretends to be sleepy, as though he’s just been woken up; the human man outside asks if they were the ones helping Wilde, and Hamid says that they were, but that Wilde snapped his fingers and vanished, leaving them to deal with the gnomes. The man hands over a croissant to Hamid, and it’s clear that he doesn’t really believe Hamid for a moment. Bertie bursts through the door, shouting about how he won’t be taken, and Hamid hands him the croissant to get him to shut up. The man – Dorian – asks all of them for their names and waits around as they confer. Bertie doesn’t recognize him. Dorian says he knows that they have two of their men (the two gnomes who Zolf killed) and Zolf retrieves the bodies. Both Hamid and Sasha look a bit ill – Dorian doesn’t seem surprised and mentions the money/bribe that the party picked up. They all act confused and bluff about the money, Dorian says he doesn’t care about the gnomes, but that he wants the money back. The intent of the money was to incentivize Wilde to come visit, or to pay the party to let Wilde go. He knows they have the money, and they offer to give Dorian back the jewels and gold. Dorian knows that Wilde is there and makes a few offers to the party – basically, they either give them Wilde and keep the money, or go with him until they find Wilde, or one of them betrays everyone else and Dorian kills the rest of the party. Zolf asks why Dorian is so interested in Wilde; Dorian says that they want to torture him for information, and Zolf says that isn’t going to happen. They argue for a while about it, and then Hamid stands up and casts Scorching Ray on Dorian. Dorian drops prone and is downed. Bertie takes his sword and decapitates him, just to be safe. The party then drops into initiative order. During the fight, the party hear loud roars and growls coming from three sides of the locksmith’s. Wilde eventually wakes up, but is incredibly groggy. They’re surrounded by a number of soldiers and archers; the back door that Sasha tries to get through is barred. The party continues to fight, and Wilde tells them to leave out the back once they hear sounds of panic and the sound of approaching engines from outside. A tank appears as Bertie glances outside, and a significant number of the enemy forces scatter. The party all make their way out the back door; Sasha gets hit by an arrow, but the rest are all fine, and they escape out the back and down an alley. Quotes HAMID: Is there any chance we can get into the sewers? What if we u-use the bombs and, and hack through u-under the toilet or something, there'll be piping? SASHA: You're talking about ... an explosion big enough to get us through the ground, into ... no. - ALEX: Bryn, I want you to know ... let's, let's look at this, what's creepier—a room covered in blood and everyone covered in blood, or a room covered in blood and everyone covered in blood, and Hamid spotlessly clean in the middle of it? BEN: You Christian Bale'd it from American Psycho. - BRYN: I really wish I'd rolled that in the other order cause I wouldn't mind having a bad initiative but that's a natural 20, I could have critted and doubled the damage. BEN: You, you killed him! Like you did as much kill as you're gonna do! - ALEX: This is an orc! This, however, is not a polite, archaeological orc. This is ... a not nice orc, who carries a greataxe! BRYN: Oh that's a great axe! LYDIA: What an excellent axe! JAMES: A barely adequate axe! BEN: Yeah it's, it's, it's not very big, it's just really good. - LYDIA: '''Three orcs ... '''BEN: Walk into a shop. JAMES: It's an orc''hestra. - '''ALEX:' Wilde begins to cast some kind of spell, he is muttering to himself in some kind of lilt that breaks into almost like a song. He's got a very good singing voice. BEN: Of course he does. ALEX: He begins to do some vague hand gestures— BRYN: My God he's a Bard! (Bryn pretends to spit) (note: this is a joke) - ALEX: The Berserkers—the one in the middle, is down. The ones on either side, make heffing great attacks at the actual physical wall ... JAMES: Ignoring the door ... ALEX: Oh yeah, they're, they're going for the wall. JAMES: They're pretty cross. LYDIA: They're Beserkers. BRYN: That's great, the next time I fire at him he will only have plus two to his AC. BEN: You fool you're making it easier for me! - JAMES: Bertie closes the door. ALEX: Y'know what? (Alex slow claps) I wasn't gonna say it— JAMES: Bertie is calm under pressure, he's just been shot in the chest by five arrows, he is gonna quietly close the door— ALEX: That is a bad door! JAMES: As the walls are being caved in with hammers, to either side of him, he is gonna take one five foot step so he's in between Zolf and the wall, and he's gonna ready an action with his sword, to attack the next person that comes into the building. - ALEX: I think you have enough to deal with other than spell failure, so we'll just say that that didn't work, and we'll go on from there, okay? LYDIA: Wait, he doesn't, like, lose a leg or anything? ALEX: No. Although, let me tell you, some of the spell failure charts are fantastic, I'm a particular fan of d100—corgis appear. - BRYN: I'm so upset I'm out of spells, like, I just want to sling spells. I'm playing a Sorcerer for a reason, and you've taken it away. I asked for enough sleep, that's all I asked for, Alex! I thought you'd know the pain of not enough sleep! - ALEX: Wilde, who has so far failed all concentration checks— BEN: He's rubbish ... BRYN: He is rubbish. JAMES: I can resist anything apart from somebody jingling their keys about a mile away. ALEX: Makes his concentration check. LYDIA: And heal the orcs and undermine us all. JAMES: He's just gonna write a children's book. - LYDIA: He made a honking sound?! JAMES: He summoned a goose! BRYN: Has he summoned the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to rescue us? JAMES: He summoned the League of Extraordinary Geese! That's even better! BEN: I think we're getting the Meritocrat Mobile. - LYDIA: Gosh, thank goodness I didn't have any compunctions about picking that up! Things that might be useful, golly! - ALEX: So, I mean, you'll run out of resources but you could all just stand in single file with all of the archers and just keep healing Bertie. BEN: That's my plan. - ALEX: Extremely dead. As in, that would have been enough to K.O. him from a standing start, he was already weakened, he's, he's ... completely massacred. BRYN: This is a bisection if you will. BEN: Yeah, so he's dead-dead. ALEX: He's, he's, he's in pieces. LYDIA: There are now two small—two half-orcs! Dice rolls and Mechanics Sasha rolls stealth, Hamid rolls to aid: Sasha gets a 25, Hamid gets a 6. Bertie rolls a knowledge nobility to see if he knows anything about Dorian: 10. Everyone makes a bluff check to lie about the money: Hamid gets 22, Zolf gets an 11, Sasha gets a 15, Bertie got a natural 1. Hamid casts Scorching Ray on Dorian: 10, deals 20 fire damage. Bertie rolls a perception check to see how many enemies there and gets a 10. Combat Breakdown Initiative rolls: Hamid gets a nat 20 (23), Zolf gets a 3, Sasha gets a 6, Bertie gets a 14. Hamid hands an invisibility potion to Sasha and casts Mage Armor on Zolf. Everyone makes a perception roll: Sasha gets a 13, Hamid gets a 27, Bertie gets a 5, Zolf gets a 17. They each hear loud roars, apart from Bertie. Bertie readies an action to strike the first person through the door. Sasha pulls Wilde out of the safe. Wilde is awake, but out of it. Zolf casts Bull’s Strength on Bertie. Hamid walks into the back room and takes a defensive position; gets out his crossbow and loads it. They all hear another roar, and a full orc bursts through the door as Bertie’s readied action goes off. He rolls a 29 and deals 15 damage. Attack of opportunity triggered for Zolf, he rolls a 9 and misses. Zolf makes a reflex save, gets an 8. A chunk of the wall next to him caves in from a punch and knocks Zolf prone. No damage. The other side of the door has the same thing happen from another orc. Bertie attacks the orc in front of him, rolls a 26 and deals 13 damage. The orc drops. A readied action goes off: all the archer’s loose arrows at Bertie. Bertie is hit 5 times, for 28 damage. Wilde tries to cast a spell, drops to a knee, and the spell fails. Sasha drags Wilde into the back room to look for an escape route. Zolf casts Cure Light Wounds on Bertie and heals him for 7 damage. Hamid shoots his crossbow at one of the orcs. He misses the attack and reloads. Each orc makes an attack at the wall, trying to break through the walls. Bertie closes the door, will take a five-foot step to be between Zolf and the wall, and ready an action to attack. Wilde attempts to cast a spell again, moves in front of Hamid. He gets a natural 1 on his concentration check and the spell fails. Sasha rolls to disable device on the door, gets a critical fail. Zolf casts Cure Light Wounds on Bertie again, heals him for 8 damage. Hamid shoots his crossbow at an orc, rolls a 24 on the attack, does 3 damage. Reloads the crossbow. The orc facing Bertie hits through the wall again. The orc on the other side of the room has destroyed the wall and is in the room. Bertie’s readied action triggers. He attacks the orc, rolling a 20, and deals 11 damage. Wilde attempts to cast another spell, succeeds on the concentration check. Casts a spell. In the distance, they hear an engine horn going off. Sasha tries to open the door in the backroom with disable device – rolls a 26, successfully unlocks and unbars the door. Zolf casts Cure Light Wounds on Bertie and heals him for 12 damage. He then steps right behind Bertie, threatening the orc. Hamid readies an action to fire his crossbow at the first enemy to move away from the party. The first orc fails to break through the wall. The second orc attacks Bertie and misses. Bertie attacks the second orc, rolls a Nat 20, gets a 26 to confirm the crit, and deals 26 damage. The orc dies. Hamid’s readied action goes off and he attempts to hit the orc’s head and misses. Another horn sounds in the distance, and the orc that had been breaking through the wall leaves. The party is not sure why but they can hear sounds of panic outside. Sasha peeks out the back to check for archers (the enemy crits and confirms the crit), and her hand is shot and pinned to the wall for only 8 damage. Zolf heads to the back room. Hamid runs to the end of the back room to stand next to Sasha. He rolls a natural 1 on his perception check. He gets a 14 on his reflex save and the arrow misses him; it cuts his cheek but doesn’t deal damage. Bertie peers out of the hole that the orc had made. He rolls a 2 on his perception and sees a giant tank driving down the street. Sasha pulls the arrow out of her hand. Rolls a 13 on the perception check, gets a natural 20 on her reflex save. She dashes to a carriage and hides behind it. Cannot see where the enemies are. Zolf is out of the door and also behind the carriage. Hamid does the same, draws his crossbow. Bertie also runs out the door. Wilde also ends up behind the carriage and fails his concentration check to cast a spell. Sasha gets a 23 on her perception check, sees all the forces fleeing. Readies an action to flee with everyone. The remainder of the party does the same, and they all successfully flee. Plot Notes Category:Episode Category:Season 2